Live Review: Mission Creek Festival 2012 Wrap-Up

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Mission Creek 2012 is now officially in the record books. The bands have all packed up and left town, the venues are back to a regular schedule of shows, and hopefully everyone can get back to a regular sleep schedule. While I donít have access to the official numbers, I can only imagine the festival was a great success. Every show that I saw was well attended, from the small, local shows up to the sold-out events at The Englert. The festival proved to be a testament to the Iowa music scene, as well as to the arts in general. In addition to the unending selection of tunes from across the board, the fest featured yet another stellar run of literary events, a spoken word extravaganza, and a foodieís wet dream of a brunch. The festival is expanding every year, and I canít wait to see what gets added next year.

While I wish the bandsí schedules would have allowed for some of the bigger shows to be spread out rather than have David Cross / Will Whitmore / Sharon Van Etten / War on Drugs all at essentially the same time, and I wish the crowd at Whitmore / Townes Earle would have been more interested in the music than the beer and the socializing, I donít really have any major complaints about the festival. Crowds were excited to be at every show, the artists were largely stoked to be around even if they werenít entirely sure what was going on, and the bands were diverse. Iíve got a number of great new memories, ranging from a pair of completely bonkers sets from Mumfordís and Oberhofer at the Yacht Club to Christopher the Conquered and Leslie and the Lys burning a hole in the Blue Moose Tap House to Jon Benjamin and Jon Glaser making me laugh so hard I was barely able to stand. The festival also featured a number of local bands showing that Iowaís music scene is nothing with which to trifle, and if Iím honest, the Iowa bands were some of my favorite shows in recent memory. My legs are jelly, my spine is completely stiff, and Iíll probably be sleep deprived for another week yet, but it was worth. Thanks for the great shows, Mission Creek. Iíll be back next year.

Thanks to everyone at Mission Creek and all of the artists, but a special thanks to Nathan Gould for setting us up.